Today in TV History: ‘Big Love’ Ended Its First Season in Scandal

Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: Somewhat unintentionally, it’s become HBO Week here at Today in TV History. It’s more a circumstantial eventuality than anything else. While most TV is packing up their spring season in early June, HBO just keeps on rolling with its freewheeling ways.

The thing about Big Love is that it had two very clearly defined eras. The first era, lasting the show’s first three seasons, was the story of an underrated cable drama that steadily came into its own and became, in season 3, one of TV’s most moving and genuinely compelling hours. Immediately thereafter came the second era, when the show’s quality fell off a cliff and fans of the show were left perplexed and crestfallen. (If you’re ever unsure as to where a given episode falls, era-wise, just check the opening credits; if it’s “God Only Knows” and ice skating, you’re good; if it’s a bunch of cast members floating in air for no reason, take caution.)

The first-season finale, “The Ceremony,” served as a showcase for what was the show’s best performance: Jeanne Tripplehorn as Barb Henrickson. That’s not to slight the performances of, say, Chloe Sevigny or Ginnifer Goodwin, not to mention supporting players like Amanda Seyfried, Mary Kay Place, or Aaron Paul (honestly, such a great cast). But Tripplehorn took the least interesting of the three wives, at least from a hook perspective (Sevigny’s Nicki and Goodwin’s Margene were both fish out of water in their own way), and imbued her with empathy and complexity. Barb longed for the kind of normalcy and dignity that her husband’s desire for plural marriage pretty much makes impossible, but at the same time she found herself honestly enriched (if often aggravated) by her super-sized family. Watching such a good woman humiliated in front of her community, as she is in the final episode when she’s disqualified from a Mother of the Year competition for being a polygamist, was heartbreaking. And then, as was typical for Big Love‘s best seasons, that heartbreak gave us a sad, sweet bonding moment between the sister-wives that remains one of the show’s best scenes ever.